Earlier in the evening, Pete was talking about how often his words get quoted in the “That’s going on the website” section. He then proceeded to completely outdo himself. You kind of had to be there, but even those of us who were, aren’t sure why he would want to drink his tea that way.

[Joe]

Last night while I was playing Sardines, I found Carie hiding, not too surprisingly, in their vegetable stand. Once I saw that Pete and Adam had gone around the house, I doubled back and got into the stand as well. This isn’t a stand that you stand in. The floor is slanted and about three or four feet off the ground. So there we were, getting eaten by mosquitoes, me with my head bent over and arms around my knees so I couldn’t be seen from the side of the stand and a car pulled up. The window rolled down and the person started asking whether or not they are going to have the painted pumpkins this year. Apparently, till the person got close, she thought we were scarecrows. Finally, Carie got the car to go away, but by then we had been found out.

In the mean time, somebody had stopped by the house and had asked Karen if she realized she had a fully grown man in her vegetable stand. All this made me wonder what people think of me, but not for too long, because later on I was hiding on the porch (I choose my hiding spots based on comfort) and was able to overhear a conversation about myself. The guy seemed a bit incredulous when he was told that I was in a PhD program.

[Joe]

The time has come for colds and overcoats.

I received this yesterday:

Don ****** to allgrad

Dear colleagues,
Some of you, particularly those of you who have offices on the fourth floor, have at times been subjected to my Windows desktop changing pranks. Specifically, you might be logged into a computer on the fourth floor, step out of the office for a minute, and return, only to find that your
Einstein-visits-Middle-Earth background had been changed to some rainbow colored pattern involving unicorns. White unicorns. White unicorns frolicking. White unicorns doing obscene acts.

I just wanted to take this moment to clear the air and apologize for these little pranks, and to ask for your understanding. You see, I have a problem. I like unicorns. No, I love unicorns. So big, so strong, so… happy. One day, I hope to own a unicorn. A white unicorn. A white unicorn with a long, pointed horn. I’d play with it, I’d ride it; I’d ride it through fields and meadows while rainbows shoot from the ground and little fairies sing “It’s Raining Men.” (Of course, it wouldn’t really be raining men, I’ve just always loved that song.)

So you see, these little desktop-changing pranks aren’t really pranks at all; I just wanted to share with you my love for unicorns. So please, in case I accidentally left a computer logged into my email account one day and one of you felt the need to seek revenge, please reconsider. Thanks!

Cheers,
Don

Dad comes home fuming about something to do with Microsoft too often for his own good. The things he says about Bill Gates, well… I can’t repeat here. Recently Dad was working on a proposal that was due the next day at 6am. The problem was that the night before, the computer gnomes had upgraded his Word to the latest version. The latest version which, of course, completely changed the interface around. As he tells it, the only things he could find were cut, copy and paste. Everything else was a mess of unrecognizable icons. You can guess what happened to that proposal.

Anyway, it’s because of all that, that I dedicate this link to Dad. It’s an email that Bill Gates sent to a number of people inside Microsoft regarding his experience trying to download Windows Movie Maker. This is from back before it was included with the OS. If you scroll down to the bottom, there’s even a link to a dramatic reading, but the email is so long that he doesn’t do it all.

[Joe]